<h1 id="title">Venus & Adonis</h1>

<section id="poemintro">
Vilia miretur vulgus: mihi flauus Apollo<br>      Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua.<br><br>    To the Right Honorable Henry Wriothesley,<br>      Earl of Southampton, and Baron of Titchfield.<br>      Right Honorable, I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your Lordship, nor how the world will censor me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burden, only if your Honor seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, until I have honored you with some graver labor. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather: and neverafter hear so barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it to your honorable survey, and your honor to your hearts content, which I wish may always answer your own wish, and the world's hopeful expectation.<br>      Your honors in all duty,<br>      William Shakespeare.
</section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Even as the sun with purple-color’d face</p>
        <p>Had ta’en his last leave of the weeping morn,</p>
        <p>Rose-cheek’d Adonis hied him to the chase;</p>
        <p>Hunting he lov’d, but love he laugh’d to scorn.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,</p>
          <p>And like a bold-fac’d suitor gins to woo him.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>“Thrice fairer than myself,” thus she began,</p>
        <p>“The field’s chief flower, sweet above compare,</p>
        <p>Stain to all nymphs, more lovely than a man,</p>
        <p>More white and red than doves or roses are,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Nature, that made thee with herself at strife,</p>
          <p>Saith that the world hath ending with thy life.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Vouchsafe, thou wonder, to alight thy steed,</p>
        <p>And rein his proud head to the saddle-bow;</p>
        <p>If thou wilt deign this favor, for thy meed</p>
        <p>A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses,</p>
          <p>And being set, I’ll smother thee with kisses;</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>And yet not cloy thy lips with loath’d satiety,</p>
        <p>But rather famish them amid their plenty,</p>
        <p>Making them red, and pale, with fresh variety—</p>
        <p>Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>A summer’s day will seem an hour but short,</p>
          <p>Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport.”</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>With this she seizeth on his sweating palm,</p>
        <p>The president of pith and livelihood,</p>
        <p>And trembling in her passion, calls it balm,</p>
        <p>Earth’s sovereign salve, to do a goddess good.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Being so enrag’d, desire doth lend her force</p>
          <p>Courageously to pluck him from his horse.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Over one arm the lusty courser’s rein,</p>
        <p>Under her other was the tender boy,</p>
        <p>Who blush’d, and pouted in a dull disdain,</p>
        <p>With leaden appetite, unapt to toy;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>She red and hot as coals of glowing fire,</p>
          <p>He red for shame, but frosty in desire.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>The studded bridle on a ragged bough</p>
        <p>Nimbly she fastens (O how quick is love!);</p>
        <p>The steed is stalled up, and even now</p>
        <p>To tie the rider she begins to prove.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Backward she push’d him, as she would be thrust,</p>
          <p>And govern’d him in strength, though not in lust.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>So soon was she along as he was down,</p>
        <p>Each leaning on their elbows and their hips.</p>
        <p>Now doth she stroke his cheek, now doth he frown,</p>
        <p>And gins to chide, but soon she stops his lips,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>And kissing speaks, with lustful language broken,</p>
          <p>“If thou wilt chide, thy lips shall never open.”</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>He burns with bashful shame, she with her tears</p>
        <p>Doth quench the maiden burning of his cheeks;</p>
        <p>Then with her windy sighs and golden hairs</p>
        <p>To fan and blow them dry again she seeks.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>He saith she is immodest, blames her miss;</p>
          <p>What follows more, she murders with a kiss.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Even as an empty eagle, sharp by fast,</p>
        <p>Tires with her beak on feathers, flesh, and bone,</p>
        <p>Shaking her wings, devouring all in haste,</p>
        <p>Till either gorge be stuff’d, or prey be gone;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Even so she kiss’d his brow, his cheek, his chin,</p>
          <p>And where she ends, she doth anew begin.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Forc’d to content, but never to obey,</p>
        <p>Panting he lies, and breatheth in her face.</p>
        <p>She feedeth on the steam, as on a prey,</p>
        <p>And calls it heavenly moisture, air of grace,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Wishing her cheeks were gardens full of flowers,</p>
          <p>So they were dew’d with such distilling showers.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Look how a bird lies tangled in a net,</p>
        <p>So fast’ned in her arms Adonis lies;</p>
        <p>Pure shame and aw’d resistance made him fret,</p>
        <p>Which bred more beauty in his angry eyes.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Rain added to a river that is rank</p>
          <p>Perforce will force it overflow the bank.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Still she entreats, and prettily entreats,</p>
        <p>For to a pretty ear she tunes her tale.</p>
        <p>Still is he sullen, still he low’rs and frets,</p>
        <p>’Twixt crimson shame and anger ashy-pale.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Being red, she loves him best, and being white,</p>
          <p>Her best is better’d with a more delight.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Look how he can, she cannot choose but love,</p>
        <p>And by her fair immortal hand she swears</p>
        <p>From his soft bosom never to remove</p>
        <p>Till he take truce with her contending tears,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Which long have rain’d, making her cheeks all wet,</p>
          <p>And one sweet kiss shall pay this comptless debt.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Upon this promise did he raise his chin,</p>
        <p>Like a dive-dapper peering through a wave,</p>
        <p>Who being look’d on, ducks as quickly in;</p>
        <p>So offers he to give what she did crave,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>But when her lips were ready for his pay,</p>
          <p>He winks, and turns his lips another way.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Never did passenger in summer’s heat</p>
        <p>More thirst for drink than she for this good turn.</p>
        <p>Her help she sees, but help she cannot get,</p>
        <p>She bathes in water, yet her fire must burn.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>“O, pity,” gan she cry, “flint-hearted boy,</p>
          <p>’Tis but a kiss I beg, why art thou coy?</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>I have been wooed, as I entreat thee now,</p>
        <p>Even by the stern and direful god of war,</p>
        <p>Whose sinewy neck in battle ne’er did bow,</p>
        <p>Who conquers where he comes in every jar,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Yet hath he been my captive, and my slave,</p>
          <p>And begg’d for that which thou unask’d shalt have.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Over my altars hath he hung his lance,</p>
        <p>His batt’red shield, his uncontrolled crest,</p>
        <p>And for my sake hath learn’d to sport and dance,</p>
        <p>To toy, to wanton, dally, smile, and jest,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Scorning his churlish drum, and ensign red,</p>
          <p>Making my arms his field, his tent my bed.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Thus he that overrul’d I overswayed,</p>
        <p>Leading him prisoner in a red rose chain;</p>
        <p>Strong-temper’d steel his stronger strength obeyed,</p>
        <p>Yet was he servile to my coy disdain.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>O, be not proud, nor brag not of thy might,</p>
          <p>For mast’ring her that foil’d the god of fight.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Touch but my lips with those fair lips of thine—</p>
        <p>Though mine be not so fair, yet are they red—</p>
        <p>The kiss shall be thine own as well as mine.</p>
        <p>What seest thou in the ground? Hold up thy head,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Look in mine eyeballs, there thy beauty lies;</p>
          <p>Then why not lips on lips, since eyes in eyes?</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Art thou asham’d to kiss? Then wink again,</p>
        <p>And I will wink, so shall the day seem night.</p>
        <p>Love keeps his revels where there are but twain;</p>
        <p>Be bold to play, our sport is not in sight;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>These blue-vein’d violets whereon we lean</p>
          <p>Never can blab, nor know not what we mean.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>The tender spring upon thy tempting lip</p>
        <p>Shows thee unripe; yet mayst thou well be tasted.</p>
        <p>Make use of time, let not advantage slip,</p>
        <p>Beauty within itself should not be wasted.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Fair flowers that are not gath’red in their prime</p>
          <p>Rot, and consume themselves in little time.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Were I hard-favor’d, foul, or wrinkled old,</p>
        <p>Ill-nurtur’d, crooked, churlish, harsh in voice,</p>
        <p>O’erworn, despised, rheumatic, and cold,</p>
        <p>Thick-sighted, barren, lean, and lacking juice,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Then mightst thou pause, for then I were not for thee,</p>
          <p>But having no defects, why dost abhor me?</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Thou canst not see one wrinkle in my brow,</p>
        <p>Mine eyes are grey, and bright, and quick in turning;</p>
        <p>My beauty as the spring doth yearly grow,</p>
        <p>My flesh is soft and plump, my marrow burning,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>My smooth moist hand, were it with thy hand felt,</p>
          <p>Would in thy palm dissolve, or seem to melt.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear,</p>
        <p>Or like a fairy, trip upon the green,</p>
        <p>Or like a nymph, with long disheveled hair,</p>
        <p>Dance on the sands, and yet no footing seen.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Love is a spirit all compact of fire,</p>
          <p>Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Witness this primrose bank whereon I lie,</p>
        <p>These forceless flowers like sturdy trees support me;</p>
        <p>Two strengthless doves will draw me through the sky,</p>
        <p>From morn till night, even where I list to sport me.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Is love so light, sweet boy, and may it be</p>
          <p>That thou should think it heavy unto thee?</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Is thine own heart to thine own face affected?</p>
        <p>Can thy right hand seize love upon thy left?</p>
        <p>Then woo thyself, be of thyself rejected;</p>
        <p>Steal thine own freedom, and complain on theft.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Narcissus so himself himself forsook,</p>
          <p>And died to kiss his shadow in the brook.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Torches are made to light, jewels to wear,</p>
        <p>Dainties to taste, fresh beauty for the use,</p>
        <p>Herbs for their smell, and sappy plants to bear:</p>
        <p>Things growing to themselves are growth’s abuse.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Seeds spring from seeds, and beauty breedeth beauty;</p>
          <p>Thou wast begot, to get it is thy duty.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Upon the earth’s increase why shouldst thou feed,</p>
        <p>Unless the earth with thy increase be fed?</p>
        <p>By law of nature thou art bound to breed,</p>
        <p>That thine may live, when thou thyself art dead;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>And so in spite of death thou dost survive,</p>
          <p>In that thy likeness still is left alive.”</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>By this the love-sick queen began to sweat,</p>
        <p>For where they lay the shadow had forsook them,</p>
        <p>And Titan, tired in the midday heat,</p>
        <p>With burning eye did hotly overlook them,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Wishing Adonis had his team to guide,</p>
          <p>So he were like him, and by Venus’ side.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>And now Adonis, with a lazy sprite,</p>
        <p>And with a heavy, dark, disliking eye,</p>
        <p>His low’ring brows o’erwhelming his fair sight,</p>
        <p>Like misty vapors when they blot the sky,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Souring his cheeks, cries, “Fie, no more of love!</p>
          <p>The sun doth burn my face, I must remove.”</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>“Ay me,” quoth Venus, “young, and so unkind,</p>
        <p>What bare excuses mak’st thou to be gone!</p>
        <p>I’ll sigh celestial breath, whose gentle wind</p>
        <p>Shall cool the heat of this descending sun;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>I’ll make a shadow for thee of my hairs;</p>
          <p>If they burn too, I’ll quench them with my tears.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>The sun that shines from heaven shines but warm,</p>
        <p>And lo I lie between that sun and thee;</p>
        <p>The heat I have from thence doth little harm,</p>
        <p>Thine eye darts forth the fire that burneth me,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>And were I not immortal, life were done,</p>
          <p>Between this heavenly and earthly sun.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Art thou obdurate, flinty, hard as steel?</p>
        <p>Nay, more than flint, for stone at rain relenteth.</p>
        <p>Art thou a woman’s son and canst not feel</p>
        <p>What ’tis to love, how want of love tormenteth?</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>O, had thy mother borne so hard a mind,</p>
          <p>She had not brought forth thee, but died unkind.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>What am I that thou shouldst contemn me this?</p>
        <p>Or what great danger dwells upon my suit?</p>
        <p>What were thy lips the worse for one poor kiss?</p>
        <p>Speak, fair, but speak fair words, or else be mute.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Give me one kiss, I’ll give it thee again,</p>
          <p>And one for int’rest, if thou wilt have twain.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Fie, lifeless picture, cold and senseless stone,</p>
        <p>Well-painted idol, image dull and dead,</p>
        <p>Statue contenting but the eye alone,</p>
        <p>Thing like a man, but of no woman bred!</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Thou art no man, though of a man’s complexion,</p>
          <p>For men will kiss even by their own direction.”</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>This said, impatience chokes her pleading tongue,</p>
        <p>And swelling passion doth provoke a pause.</p>
        <p>Red cheeks and fiery eyes blaze forth her wrong;</p>
        <p>Being judge in love, she cannot right her cause.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>And now she weeps, and now she fain would speak,</p>
          <p>And now her sobs do her intendments break.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Sometime she shakes her head, and then his hand,</p>
        <p>Now gazeth she on him, now on the ground;</p>
        <p>Sometime her arms infold him like a band:</p>
        <p>She would, he will not in her arms be bound;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>And when from thence he struggles to be gone,</p>
          <p>She locks her lily fingers one in one.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>“Fondling,” she saith, “since I have hemm’d thee here</p>
        <p>Within the circuit of this ivory pale,</p>
        <p>I’ll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer:</p>
        <p>Feed where thou wilt, on mountain, or in dale;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry,</p>
          <p>Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Within this limit is relief enough,</p>
        <p>Sweet bottom grass and high delightful plain,</p>
        <p>Round rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough,</p>
        <p>To shelter thee from tempest and from rain;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Then be my deer, since I am such a park,</p>
          <p>No dog shall rouse thee, though a thousand bark.”</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>At this Adonis smiles as in disdain,</p>
        <p>That in each cheek appears a pretty dimple;</p>
        <p>Love made those hollows, if himself were slain,</p>
        <p>He might be buried in a tomb so simple,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Foreknowing well, if there he came to lie,</p>
          <p>Why, there Love liv’d, and there he could not die.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>These lovely caves, these round enchanting pits,</p>
        <p>Open’d their mouths to swallow Venus’ liking.</p>
        <p>Being mad before, how doth she now for wits?</p>
        <p>Struck dead at first, what needs a second striking?</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Poor queen of love, in thine own law forlorn,</p>
          <p>To love a cheek that smiles at thee in scorn!</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Now which way shall she turn? What shall she say?</p>
        <p>Her words are done, her woes the more increasing;</p>
        <p>The time is spent, her object will away,</p>
        <p>And from her twining arms doth urge releasing.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>“Pity,” she cries, “some favor, some remorse!”</p>
          <p>Away he springs, and hasteth to his horse.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>But lo from forth a copse that neighbors by,</p>
        <p>A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud,</p>
        <p>Adonis’ trampling courser doth espy;</p>
        <p>And forth she rushes, snorts, and neighs aloud.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>The strong-neck’d steed, being tied unto a tree,</p>
          <p>Breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds,</p>
        <p>And now his woven girths he breaks asunder;</p>
        <p>The bearing earth with his hard hoof he wounds,</p>
        <p>Whose hollow womb resounds like heaven’s thunder;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>The iron bit he crusheth ’tween his teeth,</p>
          <p>Controlling what he was controlled with.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>His ears up-prick’d, his braided hanging mane</p>
        <p>Upon his compass’d crest now stand on end,</p>
        <p>His nostrils drink the air, and forth again</p>
        <p>As from a furnace, vapors doth he send;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>His eye, which scornfully glisters like fire,</p>
          <p>Shows his hot courage and his high desire.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Sometime he trots, as if he told the steps,</p>
        <p>With gentle majesty and modest pride;</p>
        <p>Anon he rears upright, curvets, and leaps,</p>
        <p>As who should say, “Lo thus my strength is tried;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>And this I do to captivate the eye</p>
          <p>Of the fair breeder that is standing by.”</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>What recketh he his rider’s angry stir,</p>
        <p>His flattering “Holla,” or his “Stand, I say”?</p>
        <p>What cares he now for curb, or pricking spur,</p>
        <p>For rich caparisons, or trappings gay?</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>He sees his love, and nothing else he sees,</p>
          <p>For nothing else with his proud sight agrees.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Look when a painter would surpass the life</p>
        <p>In limning out a well-proportioned steed,</p>
        <p>His art with nature’s workmanship at strife,</p>
        <p>As if the dead the living should exceed;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>So did this horse excel a common one,</p>
          <p>In shape, in courage, color, pace, and bone.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Round-hoof’d, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long,</p>
        <p>Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide,</p>
        <p>High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong,</p>
        <p>Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide:</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Look what a horse should have he did not lack,</p>
          <p>Save a proud rider on so proud a back.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Sometime he scuds far off, and there he stares,</p>
        <p>Anon he starts at stirring of a feather;</p>
        <p>To bid the wind a base he now prepares,</p>
        <p>And whe’er he run, or fly, they know not whether;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>For through his mane and tail the high wind sings,</p>
          <p>Fanning the hairs, who wave like feath’red wings.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>He looks upon his love, and neighs unto her,</p>
        <p>She answers him, as if she knew his mind;</p>
        <p>Being proud as females are, to see him woo her,</p>
        <p>She puts on outward strangeness, seems unkind,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Spurns at his love, and scorns the heat he feels,</p>
          <p>Beating his kind embracements with her heels.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Then like a melancholy malcontent,</p>
        <p>He vails his tail that like a falling plume</p>
        <p>Cool shadow to his melting buttock lent;</p>
        <p>He stamps, and bites the poor flies in his fume.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>His love, perceiving how he was enrag’d,</p>
          <p>Grew kinder, and his fury was assuag’d.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>His testy master goeth about to take him,</p>
        <p>When lo the unback’d breeder, full of fear,</p>
        <p>Jealous of catching, swiftly doth forsake him,</p>
        <p>With her the horse, and left Adonis there.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>As they were mad unto the wood they hie them,</p>
          <p>Outstripping crows that strive to overfly them.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>All swoll’n with chafing, down Adonis sits,</p>
        <p>Banning his boist’rous and unruly beast;</p>
        <p>And now the happy season once more fits</p>
        <p>That love-sick Love by pleading may be blest;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>For lovers say, the heart hath treble wrong</p>
          <p>When it is barr’d the aidance of the tongue.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>An oven that is stopp’d, or river stay’d,</p>
        <p>Burneth more hotly, swelleth with more rage;</p>
        <p>So of concealed sorrow may be said,</p>
        <p>Free vent of words love’s fire doth assuage,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>But when the heart’s attorney once is mute,</p>
          <p>The client breaks, as desperate in his suit.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>He sees her coming, and begins to glow,</p>
        <p>Even as a dying coal revives with wind,</p>
        <p>And with his bonnet hides his angry brow,</p>
        <p>Looks on the dull earth with disturbed mind,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Taking no notice that she is so nigh,</p>
          <p>For all askance he holds her in his eye.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>O what a sight it was wistly to view,</p>
        <p>How she came stealing to the wayward boy,</p>
        <p>To note the fighting conflict of her hue,</p>
        <p>How white and red each other did destroy!</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>But now her cheek was pale, and by and by</p>
          <p>It flash’d forth fire, as lightning from the sky.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Now was she just before him as he sat,</p>
        <p>And like a lowly lover down she kneels;</p>
        <p>With one fair hand she heaveth up his hat,</p>
        <p>Her other tender hand his fair cheek feels:</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>His tend’rer cheek receives her soft hand’s print,</p>
          <p>As apt as new-fall’n snow takes any dint.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>O what a war of looks was then between them!</p>
        <p>Her eyes petitioners to his eyes suing,</p>
        <p>His eyes saw her eyes as they had not seen them,</p>
        <p>Her eyes wooed still, his eyes disdain’d the wooing;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>And all this dumb play had his acts made plain</p>
          <p>With tears which chorus-like her eyes did rain.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Full gently now she takes him by the hand,</p>
        <p>A lily prison’d in a jail of snow,</p>
        <p>Or ivory in an alabaster band,</p>
        <p>So white a friend engirts so white a foe:</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>This beauteous combat, willful and unwilling,</p>
          <p>Showed like two silver doves that sit a-billing.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Once more the engine of her thoughts began:</p>
        <p>“O fairest mover on this mortal round,</p>
        <p>Would thou wert as I am, and I a man,</p>
        <p>My heart all whole as thine, thy heart my wound!</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>For one sweet look thy help I would assure thee,</p>
          <p>Though nothing but my body’s bane would cure thee.”</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>“Give me my hand,” saith he, “why dost thou feel it?”</p>
        <p>“Give me my heart,” saith she, “and thou shalt have it.</p>
        <p>O, give it me, lest thy hard heart do steel it,</p>
        <p>And being steel’d, soft sighs can never grave it.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Then love’s deep groans I never shall regard,</p>
          <p>Because Adonis’ heart hath made mine hard.”</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>“For shame,” he cries, “let go, and let me go,</p>
        <p>My day’s delight is past, my horse is gone,</p>
        <p>And ’tis your fault I am bereft him so.</p>
        <p>I pray you hence, and leave me here alone,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>For all my mind, my thought, my busy care,</p>
          <p>Is how to get my palfrey from the mare.”</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Thus she replies: “Thy palfrey, as he should,</p>
        <p>Welcomes the warm approach of sweet desire;</p>
        <p>Affection is a coal that must be cool’d,</p>
        <p>Else suffer’d it will set the heart on fire.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>The sea hath bounds, but deep desire hath none,</p>
          <p>Therefore no marvel though thy horse be gone.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>How like a jade he stood, tied to the tree,</p>
        <p>Servilely master’d with a leathern rein!</p>
        <p>But when he saw his love, his youth’s fair fee,</p>
        <p>He held such petty bondage in disdain,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Throwing the base thong from his bending crest,</p>
          <p>Enfranchising his mouth, his back, his breast.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Who sees his true-love in her naked bed,</p>
        <p>Teaching the sheets a whiter hue than white,</p>
        <p>But when his glutton eye so full hath fed,</p>
        <p>His other agents aim at like delight?</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Who is so faint that dares not be so bold</p>
          <p>To touch the fire, the weather being cold?</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Let me excuse thy courser, gentle boy,</p>
        <p>And learn of him, I heartily beseech thee,</p>
        <p>To take advantage on presented joy;</p>
        <p>Though I were dumb, yet his proceedings teach thee.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>O, learn to love, the lesson is but plain,</p>
          <p>And once made perfect, never lost again.”</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>“I know not love,” quoth he, “nor will not know it,</p>
        <p>Unless it be a boar, and then I chase it;</p>
        <p>’Tis much to borrow, and I will not owe it;</p>
        <p>My love to love is love but to disgrace it,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>For I have heard it is a life in death,</p>
          <p>That laughs and weeps, and all but with a breath.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Who wears a garment shapeless and unfinish’d?</p>
        <p>Who plucks the bud before one leaf put forth?</p>
        <p>If springing things be any jot diminish’d,</p>
        <p>They wither in their prime, prove nothing worth;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>The colt that’s back’d and burden’d being young,</p>
          <p>Loseth his pride, and never waxeth strong.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>You hurt my hand with wringing, let us part,</p>
        <p>And leave this idle theme, this bootless chat;</p>
        <p>Remove your siege from my unyielding heart,</p>
        <p>To love’s alarms it will not ope the gate;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Dismiss your vows, your feigned tears, your flatt’ry,</p>
          <p>For where a heart is hard they make no batt’ry.”</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>“What, canst thou talk?” quoth she, “hast thou a tongue?</p>
        <p>O would thou hadst not, or I had no hearing!</p>
        <p>Thy mermaid’s voice hath done me double wrong;</p>
        <p>I had my load before, now press’d with bearing:</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Melodious discord, heavenly tune harsh sounding,</p>
          <p>Ears’ deep sweet music, and heart’s deep sore wounding.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Had I no eyes but ears, my ears would love</p>
        <p>That inward beauty and invisible,</p>
        <p>Or were I deaf, thy outward parts would move</p>
        <p>Each part in me that were but sensible;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Though neither eyes nor ears to hear nor see,</p>
          <p>Yet should I be in love by touching thee.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Say that the sense of feeling were bereft me,</p>
        <p>And that I could not see, nor hear, nor touch,</p>
        <p>And nothing but the very smell were left me,</p>
        <p>Yet would my love to thee be still as much,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>For from the stillitory of thy face excelling</p>
          <p>Comes breath perfum’d, that breedeth love by smelling.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>But O, what banquet wert thou to the taste,</p>
        <p>Being nurse and feeder of the other four!</p>
        <p>Would they not wish the feast might ever last,</p>
        <p>And bid Suspicion double-lock the door,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Lest Jealousy, that sour unwelcome guest,</p>
          <p>Should by his stealing in disturb the feast?”</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Once more the ruby-color’d portal open’d,</p>
        <p>Which to his speech did honey passage yield,</p>
        <p>Like a red morn, that ever yet betoken’d</p>
        <p>Wrack to the seaman, tempest to the field,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,</p>
          <p>Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>This ill presage advisedly she marketh:</p>
        <p>Even as the wind is hush’d before it raineth,</p>
        <p>Or as the wolf doth grin before he barketh,</p>
        <p>Or as the berry breaks before it staineth,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Or like the deadly bullet of a gun,</p>
          <p>His meaning struck her ere his words begun.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>And at his look she flatly falleth down,</p>
        <p>For looks kill love, and love by looks reviveth:</p>
        <p>A smile recures the wounding of a frown.</p>
        <p>But blessed bankrupt that by love so thriveth!</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>The silly boy, believing she is dead,</p>
          <p>Claps her pale cheek, till clapping makes it red;</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>And all amaz’d, brake off his late intent,</p>
        <p>For sharply he did think to reprehend her,</p>
        <p>Which cunning Love did wittily prevent:</p>
        <p>Fair fall the wit that can so well defend her!</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>For on the grass she lies as she were slain,</p>
          <p>Till his breath breatheth life in her again.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>He wrings her nose, he strikes her on the cheeks,</p>
        <p>He bends her fingers, holds her pulses hard,</p>
        <p>He chafes her lips, a thousand ways he seeks</p>
        <p>To mend the hurt that his unkindness marr’d,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>He kisses her, and she by her good will</p>
          <p>Will never rise, so he will kiss her still.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>The night of sorrow now is turn’d to day:</p>
        <p>Her two blue windows faintly she upheaveth,</p>
        <p>Like the fair sun, when in his fresh array</p>
        <p>He cheers the morn, and all the earth relieveth;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>And as the bright sun glorifies the sky,</p>
          <p>So is her face illumin’d with her eye,</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Whose beams upon his hairless face are fix’d,</p>
        <p>As if from thence they borrowed all their shine.</p>
        <p>Were never four such lamps together mix’d,</p>
        <p>Had not his clouded with his brow’s repine;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>But hers, which through the crystal tears gave light,</p>
          <p>Shone like the moon in water seen by night.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>“O, where am I?” quoth she, “in earth or heaven,</p>
        <p>Or in the ocean drench’d, or in the fire?</p>
        <p>What hour is this? Or morn or weary even?</p>
        <p>Do I delight to die, or life desire?</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>But now I liv’d, and life was death’s annoy,</p>
          <p>But now I died, and death was lively joy.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>O, thou didst kill me, kill me once again.</p>
        <p>Thy eyes’ shrewd tutor, that hard heart of thine,</p>
        <p>Hath taught them scornful tricks, and such disdain</p>
        <p>That they have murd’red this poor heart of mine,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>And these mine eyes, true leaders to their queen,</p>
          <p>But for thy piteous lips no more had seen.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Long may they kiss each other for this cure!</p>
        <p>O, never let their crimson liveries wear!</p>
        <p>And as they last, their verdour still endure,</p>
        <p>To drive infection from the dangerous year!</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>That the star-gazers, having writ on death,</p>
          <p>May say, the plague is banish’d by thy breath.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted,</p>
        <p>What bargains may I make, still to be sealing?</p>
        <p>To sell myself I can be well contented,</p>
        <p>So thou wilt buy, and pay, and use good dealing,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Which purchase if thou make, for fear of slips,</p>
          <p>Set thy seal manual on my wax-red lips.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>A thousand kisses buys my heart from me,</p>
        <p>And pay them at thy leisure, one by one.</p>
        <p>What is ten hundred touches unto thee?</p>
        <p>Are they not quickly told, and quickly gone?</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Say for non-payment that the debt should double,</p>
          <p>Is twenty hundred kisses such a trouble?”</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>“Fair queen,” quoth he, “if any love you owe me,</p>
        <p>Measure my strangeness with my unripe years;</p>
        <p>Before I know myself, seek not to know me,</p>
        <p>No fisher but the ungrown fry forbears;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>The mellow plum doth fall, the green sticks fast,</p>
          <p>Or being early pluck’d, is sour to taste.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Look the world’s comforter with weary gait</p>
        <p>His day’s hot task hath ended in the west;</p>
        <p>The owl (night’s herald) shrieks, ’tis very late;</p>
        <p>The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>And coal-black clouds that shadow heaven’s light</p>
          <p>Do summon us to part, and bid good night.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Now let me say ‘Good night,’ and so say you;</p>
        <p>If you will say so, you shall have a kiss.”</p>
        <p>“Good night,” quoth she, and ere he says “>Adieu,”</p>
        <p>The honey fee of parting tend’red is;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Her arms do lend his neck a sweet embrace;</p>
          <p>Incorporate then they seem, face grows to face;</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Till breathless he disjoin’d, and backward drew</p>
        <p>The heavenly moisture, that sweet coral mouth,</p>
        <p>Whose precious taste her thirsty lips well knew,</p>
        <p>Whereon they surfeit, yet complain on drouth;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>He with her plenty press’d, she faint with dearth,</p>
          <p>Their lips together glued, fall to the earth.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Now quick desire hath caught the yielding prey,</p>
        <p>And glutton-like she feeds, yet never filleth;</p>
        <p>Her lips are conquerors, his lips obey,</p>
        <p>Paying what ransom the insulter willeth;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Whose vulture thought doth pitch the price so high</p>
          <p>That she will draw his lips’ rich treasure dry.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>And having felt the sweetness of the spoil,</p>
        <p>With blindfold fury she begins to forage;</p>
        <p>Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil,</p>
        <p>And careless lust stirs up a desperate courage,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Planting oblivion, beating reason back,</p>
          <p>Forgetting shame’s pure blush and honor’s wrack.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Hot, faint, and weary, with her hard embracing,</p>
        <p>Like a wild bird being tam’d with too much handling,</p>
        <p>Or as the fleet-foot roe that’s tir’d with chasing,</p>
        <p>Or like the froward infant still’d with dandling,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>He now obeys, and now no more resisteth,</p>
          <p>While she takes all she can, not all she listeth.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>What wax so frozen but dissolves with temp’ring,</p>
        <p>And yields at last to every light impression?</p>
        <p>Things out of hope are compass’d oft with vent’ring,</p>
        <p>Chiefly in love, whose leave exceeds commission;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Affection faints not like a pale-fac’d coward,</p>
          <p>But then woos best when most his choice is froward.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>When he did frown, O had she then gave over,</p>
        <p>Such nectar from his lips she had not suck’d.</p>
        <p>Foul words and frowns must not repel a lover;</p>
        <p>What though the rose have prickles, yet ’tis pluck’d!</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast,</p>
          <p>Yet love breaks through, and picks them all at last.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>For pity now she can no more detain him;</p>
        <p>The poor fool prays her that he may depart.</p>
        <p>She is resolv’d no longer to restrain him,</p>
        <p>Bids him farewell, and look well to her heart,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>The which, by Cupid’s bow she doth protest,</p>
          <p>He carries thence incaged in his breast.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>“Sweet boy,” she says, “this night I’ll waste in sorrow,</p>
        <p>For my sick heart commands mine eyes to watch.</p>
        <p>Tell me, Love’s master, shall we meet tomorrow?</p>
        <p>Say, shall we, shall we? Wilt thou make the match?”</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>He tells her no, tomorrow he intends</p>
          <p>To hunt the boar with certain of his friends.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>“The boar!” quoth she, whereat a sudden pale,</p>
        <p>Like lawn being spread upon the blushing rose,</p>
        <p>Usurps her cheek; she trembles at his tale,</p>
        <p>And on his neck her yoking arms she throws.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>She sinketh down, still hanging by his neck,</p>
          <p>He on her belly falls, she on her back.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Now is she in the very lists of love,</p>
        <p>Her champion mounted for the hot encounter;</p>
        <p>All is imaginary she doth prove,</p>
        <p>He will not manage her, although he mount her,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>That worse than Tantalus’ is her annoy,</p>
          <p>To clip Elysium and to lack her joy.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Even so poor birds, deceiv’d with painted grapes,</p>
        <p>Do surfeit by the eye and pine the maw;</p>
        <p>Even so she languisheth in her mishaps,</p>
        <p>As those poor birds that helpless berries saw.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>The warm effects which she in him finds missing</p>
          <p>She seeks to kindle with continual kissing.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>But all in vain, good queen, it will not be;</p>
        <p>She hath assay’d as much as may be prov’d.</p>
        <p>Her pleading hath deserv’d a greater fee;</p>
        <p>She’s Love, she loves, and yet she is not lov’d.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>“Fie, fie,” he says, “you crush me, let me go,</p>
          <p>You have no reason to withhold me so.”</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>“Thou hadst been gone,” quoth she, “sweet boy, ere this,</p>
        <p>But that thou toldst me thou wouldst hunt the boar.</p>
        <p>O, be advis’d, thou know’st not what it is</p>
        <p>With javeling’s point a churlish swine to gore,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Whose tushes never sheath’d he whetteth still,</p>
          <p>Like to a mortal butcher bent to kill.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>On his bow-back he hath a battle set</p>
        <p>Of bristly pikes that ever threat his foes,</p>
        <p>His eyes like glow-worms shine when he doth fret,</p>
        <p>His snout digs sepulchres where e’er he goes;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Being mov’d, he strikes, what e’er is in his way,</p>
          <p>And whom he strikes his crooked tushes slay.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>His brawny sides, with hairy bristles armed,</p>
        <p>Are better proof than thy spear’s point can enter;</p>
        <p>His short thick neck cannot be easily harmed;</p>
        <p>Being ireful, on the lion he will venture.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>The thorny brambles and embracing bushes,</p>
          <p>As fearful of him, part, through whom he rushes.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Alas, he nought esteems that face of thine,</p>
        <p>To which Love’s eyes pays tributary gazes,</p>
        <p>Nor thy soft hands, sweet lips, and crystal eyne,</p>
        <p>Whose full perfection all the world amazes,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>But having thee at vantage (wondrous dread!)</p>
          <p>Would root these beauties as he roots the mead.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>O, let him keep his loathsome cabin still!</p>
        <p>Beauty hath nought to do with such foul fiends.</p>
        <p>Come not within his danger by thy will,</p>
        <p>They that thrive well take counsel of their friends.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>When thou didst name the boar, not to dissemble,</p>
          <p>I fear’d thy fortune, and my joints did tremble.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Didst thou not mark my face? Was it not white?</p>
        <p>Sawest thou not signs of fear lurk in mine eye?</p>
        <p>Grew I not faint, and fell I not downright?</p>
        <p>Within my bosom, whereon thou dost lie,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>My boding heart pants, beats, and takes no rest,</p>
          <p>But like an earthquake, shakes thee on my breast.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>For where Love reigns, disturbing Jealousy</p>
        <p>Doth call himself Affection’s sentinel,</p>
        <p>Gives false alarms, suggesteth mutiny,</p>
        <p>And in a peaceful hour doth cry, “Kill, kill!”</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Distemp’ring gentle Love in his desire,</p>
          <p>As air and water do abate the fire.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy,</p>
        <p>This canker that eats up Love’s tender spring,</p>
        <p>This carry-tale, dissentious Jealousy,</p>
        <p>That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear,</p>
          <p>That if I love thee, I thy death should fear;</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>And more than so, presenteth to mine eye</p>
        <p>The picture of an angry chafing boar,</p>
        <p>Under whose sharp fangs, on his back doth lie</p>
        <p>An image like thyself, all stain’d with gore,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Whose blood upon the fresh flowers being shed,</p>
          <p>Doth make them droop with grief and hang the head.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>What should I do, seeing thee so indeed,</p>
        <p>That tremble at th’ imagination?</p>
        <p>The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed,</p>
        <p>And fear doth teach it divination:</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>I prophesy thy death, my living sorrow,</p>
          <p>If thou encounter with the boar tomorrow.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>But if thou needs wilt hunt, be rul’d by me,</p>
        <p>Uncouple at the timorous flying hare,</p>
        <p>Or at the fox which lives by subtlety,</p>
        <p>Or at the roe which no encounter dare;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Pursue these fearful creatures o’er the downs,</p>
          <p>And on thy well-breath’d horse keep with thy hounds.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare,</p>
        <p>Mark the poor wretch, to overshut his troubles,</p>
        <p>How he outruns the wind, and with what care</p>
        <p>He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles:</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>The many musits through the which he goes</p>
          <p>Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep,</p>
        <p>To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,</p>
        <p>And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,</p>
        <p>To stop the loud pursuers in their yell,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer:</p>
          <p>Danger deviseth shifts, wit waits on fear.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>For there his smell with others being mingled,</p>
        <p>The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt,</p>
        <p>Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled</p>
        <p>With much ado the cold fault cleanly out;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Then do they spend their mouths: echo replies,</p>
          <p>As if another chase were in the skies.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,</p>
        <p>Stands on his hinder-legs with list’ning ear,</p>
        <p>To hearken if his foes pursue him still.</p>
        <p>Anon their loud alarums he doth hear,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>And now his grief may be compared well</p>
          <p>To one sore sick that hears the passing bell.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch</p>
        <p>Turn, and return, indenting with the way;</p>
        <p>Each envious brier his weary legs do scratch,</p>
        <p>Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>For misery is trodden on by many,</p>
          <p>And being low, never reliev’d by any.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Lie quietly, and hear a little more,</p>
        <p>Nay, do not struggle, for thou shalt not rise.</p>
        <p>To make thee hate the hunting of the boar,</p>
        <p>Unlike myself thou hear’st me moralize,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Applying this to that, and so to so,</p>
          <p>For love can comment upon every woe.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Where did I leave?” “No matter where,” quoth he,</p>
        <p>“Leave me, and then the story aptly ends;</p>
        <p>The night is spent.” “Why, what of that?” quoth she.</p>
        <p>“I am,” quoth he, “expected of my friends,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>And now ’tis dark, and going I shall fall.”</p>
          <p>“In night,” quoth she, “desire sees best of all.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>But if thou fall, O then imagine this,</p>
        <p>The earth, in love with thee, thy footing trips,</p>
        <p>And all is but to rob thee of a kiss.</p>
        <p>Rich preys make true men thieves; so do thy lips</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Make modest Dian cloudy and forlorn,</p>
          <p>Lest she should steal a kiss and die forsworn.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Now of this dark night I perceive the reason:</p>
        <p>Cynthia for shame obscures her silver shine,</p>
        <p>Till forging Nature be condemn’d of treason,</p>
        <p>For stealing moulds from heaven that were divine,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Wherein she fram’d thee, in high heaven’s despite,</p>
          <p>To shame the sun by day, and her by night.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>And therefore hath she brib’d the Destinies</p>
        <p>To cross the curious workmanship of Nature,</p>
        <p>To mingle beauty with infirmities,</p>
        <p>And pure perfection with impure defeature,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Making it subject to the tyranny</p>
          <p>Of mad mischances and much misery:</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>As burning fevers, agues pale and faint,</p>
        <p>Life-poisoning pestilence, and frenzies wood,</p>
        <p>The marrow-eating sickness, whose attaint</p>
        <p>Disorder breeds by heating of the blood;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Surfeits, impostumes, grief, and damn’d despair</p>
          <p>Swear Nature’s death for framing thee so fair.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>And not the least of all these maladies</p>
        <p>But in one minute’s fight brings beauty under;</p>
        <p>Both favor, savor, hue, and qualities,</p>
        <p>Whereat th’ impartial gazer late did wonder,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Are on the sudden wasted, thaw’d, and done,</p>
          <p>As mountain snow melts with the midday sun.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Therefore despite of fruitless chastity,</p>
        <p>Love-lacking vestals, and self-loving nuns,</p>
        <p>That on the earth would breed a scarcity</p>
        <p>And barren dearth of daughters and of sons,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Be prodigal: the lamp that burns by night</p>
          <p>Dries up his oil to lend the world his light.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>What is thy body but a swallowing grave,</p>
        <p>Seeming to bury that posterity</p>
        <p>Which by the rights of time thou needs must have,</p>
        <p>If thou destroy them not in dark obscurity?</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>If so, the world will hold thee in disdain,</p>
          <p>Sith in thy pride so fair a hope is slain.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>So in thyself thyself art made away,</p>
        <p>A mischief worse than civil home-bred strife,</p>
        <p>Or theirs whose desperate hands themselves do slay,</p>
        <p>Or butcher sire that reaves his son of life.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Foul cank’ring rust the hidden treasure frets,</p>
          <p>But gold that’s put to use more gold begets.”</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>“Nay then,” quoth Adon, “you will fall again</p>
        <p>Into your idle over-handled theme.</p>
        <p>The kiss I gave you is bestow’d in vain,</p>
        <p>And all in vain you strive against the stream,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>For by this black-fac’d night, desire’s foul nurse,</p>
          <p>Your treatise makes me like you worse and worse.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>If love have lent you twenty thousand tongues,</p>
        <p>And every tongue more moving than your own,</p>
        <p>Bewitching like the wanton mermaids’ songs,</p>
        <p>Yet from mine ear the tempting tune is blown;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>For know my heart stands armed in mine ear,</p>
          <p>And will not let a false sound enter there,</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Lest the deceiving harmony should run</p>
        <p>Into the quiet closure of my breast,</p>
        <p>And then my little heart were quite undone,</p>
        <p>In his bedchamber to be barr’d of rest.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>No, lady, no, my heart longs not to groan,</p>
          <p>But soundly sleeps, while now it sleeps alone.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>What have you urg’d that I cannot reprove?</p>
        <p>The path is smooth that leadeth on to danger.</p>
        <p>I hate not love, but your device in love,</p>
        <p>That lends embracements unto every stranger.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>You do it for increase: O strange excuse!</p>
          <p>When reason is the bawd to lust’s abuse.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Call it not love, for Love to heaven is fled,</p>
        <p>Since sweating Lust on earth usurp’d his name,</p>
        <p>Under whose simple semblance he hath fed</p>
        <p>Upon fresh beauty, blotting it with blame;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Which the hot tyrant stains, and soon bereaves,</p>
          <p>As caterpillars do the tender leaves.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,</p>
        <p>But Lust’s effect is tempest after sun;</p>
        <p>Love’s gentle spring doth always fresh remain,</p>
        <p>Lust’s winter comes ere summer half be done;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies;</p>
          <p>Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>More I could tell, but more I dare not say,</p>
        <p>The text is old, the orator too green,</p>
        <p>Therefore in sadness, now I will away;</p>
        <p>My face is full of shame, my heart of teen,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Mine ears, that to your wanton talk attended,</p>
          <p>Do burn themselves for having so offended.”</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>With this he breaketh from the sweet embrace</p>
        <p>Of those fair arms which bound him to her breast,</p>
        <p>And homeward through the dark laund runs apace,</p>
        <p>Leaves Love upon her back, deeply distress’d.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Look how a bright star shooteth from the sky,</p>
          <p>So glides he in the night from Venus’ eye,</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Which after him she darts, as one on shore</p>
        <p>Gazing upon a late embarked friend,</p>
        <p>Till the wild waves will have him seen no more,</p>
        <p>Whose ridges with the meeting clouds contend;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>So did the merciless and pitchy night</p>
          <p>Fold in the object that did feed her sight.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Whereat amaz’d as one that unaware</p>
        <p>Hath dropp’d a precious jewel in the flood,</p>
        <p>Or stonish’d as night-wand’rers often are,</p>
        <p>Their light blown out in some mistrustful wood,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Even so confounded in the dark she lay,</p>
          <p>Having lost the fair discovery of her way.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>And now she beats her heart, whereat it groans,</p>
        <p>That all the neighbor caves, as seeming troubled,</p>
        <p>Make verbal repetition of her moans;</p>
        <p>Passion on passion deeply is redoubled:</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>“Ay me!” she cries, and twenty times, “Woe, woe!”</p>
          <p>And twenty echoes twenty times cry so.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>She marking them begins a wailing note,</p>
        <p>And sings extemporally a woeful ditty,</p>
        <p>How love makes young men thrall, and old men dote,</p>
        <p>How love is wise in folly, foolish witty.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Her heavy anthem still concludes in woe,</p>
          <p>And still the choir of echoes answer so.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Her song was tedious, and outwore the night,</p>
        <p>For lovers’ hours are long, though seeming short;</p>
        <p>If pleas’d themselves, others they think delight</p>
        <p>In such-like circumstance, with such-like sport.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Their copious stories, oftentimes begun,</p>
          <p>End without audience, and are never done.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>For who hath she to spend the night withal,</p>
        <p>But idle sounds resembling parasites,</p>
        <p>Like shrill-tongu’d tapsters answering every call,</p>
        <p>Soothing the humor of fantastic wits?</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>She says, “’Tis so,” they answer all, “’Tis so,”</p>
          <p>And would say after her, if she said “No.”</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Lo here the gentle lark, weary of rest,</p>
        <p>From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,</p>
        <p>And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast</p>
        <p>The sun ariseth in his majesty,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Who doth the world so gloriously behold</p>
          <p>That cedar tops and hills seem burnish’d gold.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Venus salutes him with this fair good morrow:</p>
        <p>“O thou clear god, and patron of all light,</p>
        <p>From whom each lamp and shining star doth borrow</p>
        <p>The beauteous influence that makes him bright,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>There lives a son that suck’d an earthly mother,</p>
          <p>May lend thee light, as thou dost lend to other.”</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>This said, she hasteth to a myrtle grove,</p>
        <p>Musing the morning is so much o’erworn,</p>
        <p>And yet she hears no tidings of her love.</p>
        <p>She hearkens for his hounds and for his horn;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Anon she hears them chaunt it lustily,</p>
          <p>And all in haste she coasteth to the cry.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>And as she runs, the bushes in the way,</p>
        <p>Some catch her by the neck, some kiss her face,</p>
        <p>Some twin’d about her thigh to make her stay.</p>
        <p>She wildly breaketh from their strict embrace,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Like a milch doe, whose swelling dugs do ache,</p>
          <p>Hasting to feed her fawn hid in some brake.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>By this she hears the hounds are at a bay,</p>
        <p>Whereat she starts like one that spies an adder</p>
        <p>Wreath’d up in fatal folds just in his way,</p>
        <p>The fear whereof doth make him shake and shudder;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Even so the timorous yelping of the hounds</p>
          <p>Appalls her senses, and her spirit confounds.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>For now she knows it is no gentle chase,</p>
        <p>But the blunt boar, rough bear, or lion proud,</p>
        <p>Because the cry remaineth in one place,</p>
        <p>Where fearfully the dogs exclaim aloud;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Finding their enemy to be so curst,</p>
          <p>They all strain court’sy who shall cope him first.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>This dismal cry rings sadly in her ear,</p>
        <p>Through which it enters to surprise her heart,</p>
        <p>Who overcome by doubt, and bloodless fear,</p>
        <p>With cold-pale weakness numbs each feeling part:</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Like soldiers when their captain once doth yield,</p>
          <p>They basely fly, and dare not stay the field.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Thus stands she in a trembling ecstasy,</p>
        <p>Till cheering up her senses all dismay’d,</p>
        <p>She tells them ’tis a causeless fantasy,</p>
        <p>And childish error that they are afraid;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Bids them leave quaking, bids them fear no more—</p>
          <p>And with that word, she spied the hunted boar,</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Whose frothy mouth bepainted all with red,</p>
        <p>Like milk and blood being mingled both together,</p>
        <p>A second fear through all her sinews spread,</p>
        <p>Which madly hurries her she knows not whither;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>This way she runs, and now she will no further,</p>
          <p>But back retires to rate the boar for murder.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>A thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways,</p>
        <p>She treads the path that she untreads again;</p>
        <p>Her more than haste is mated with delays,</p>
        <p>Like the proceedings of a drunken brain,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Full of respects, yet nought at all respecting,</p>
          <p>In hand with all things, nought at all effecting.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Here kennell’d in a brake she finds a hound,</p>
        <p>And asks the weary caitiff for his master,</p>
        <p>And there another licking of his wound,</p>
        <p>’Gainst venom’d sores the only sovereign plaster,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>And here she meets another sadly scowling,</p>
          <p>To whom she speaks, and he replies with howling.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>When he hath ceas’d his ill-resounding noise,</p>
        <p>Another flap-mouth’d mourner, black and grim,</p>
        <p>Against the welkin volleys out his voice;</p>
        <p>Another, and another, answer him,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Clapping their proud tails to the ground below,</p>
          <p>Shaking their scratch’d ears, bleeding as they go.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Look how the world’s poor people are amazed</p>
        <p>At apparitions, signs, and prodigies,</p>
        <p>Whereon with fearful eyes they long have gazed,</p>
        <p>Infusing them with dreadful prophecies;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>So she at these sad signs draws up her breath,</p>
          <p>And sighing it again, exclaims on Death.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>“Hard-favor’d tyrant, ugly, meagre, lean,</p>
        <p>Hateful divorce of love”—thus chides she Death—</p>
        <p>“Grim-grinning ghost, earth’s worm, what dost thou mean</p>
        <p>To stifle beauty, and to steal his breath?</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Who when he liv’d, his breath and beauty set</p>
          <p>Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>If he be dead—O no, it cannot be,</p>
        <p>Seeing his beauty, thou shouldst strike at it:</p>
        <p>O yes, it may, thou hast no eyes to see,</p>
        <p>But hatefully at random dost thou hit.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Thy mark is feeble age, but thy false dart</p>
          <p>Mistakes that aim, and cleaves an infant’s heart.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Hadst thou but bid beware, then he had spoke,</p>
        <p>And hearing him, thy power had lost his power.</p>
        <p>The Destinies will curse thee for this stroke:</p>
        <p>They bid thee crop a weed, thou pluck’st a flower.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Love’s golden arrow at him should have fled,</p>
          <p>And not Death’s ebon dart to strike him dead.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Dost thou drink tears, that thou provok’st such weeping?</p>
        <p>What may a heavy groan advantage thee?</p>
        <p>Why hast thou cast into eternal sleeping</p>
        <p>Those eyes that taught all other eyes to see?</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Now Nature cares not for thy mortal vigor,</p>
          <p>Since her best work is ruin’d with thy rigor.”</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Here overcome, as one full of despair,</p>
        <p>She vail’d her eyelids, who like sluices stopp’d</p>
        <p>The crystal tide that from her two cheeks fair</p>
        <p>In the sweet channel of her bosom dropp’d;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>But through the flood-gates breaks the silver rain,</p>
          <p>And with his strong course opens them again.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>O how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow!</p>
        <p>Her eye seen in the tears, tears in her eye,</p>
        <p>Both crystals, where they view’d each other’s sorrow,</p>
        <p>Sorrow that friendly sighs sought still to dry;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain,</p>
          <p>Sighs dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Variable passions throng her constant woe,</p>
        <p>As striving who should best become her grief;</p>
        <p>All entertain’d, each passion labors so,</p>
        <p>That every present sorrow seemeth chief,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>But none is best; then join they all together,</p>
          <p>Like many clouds consulting for foul weather.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>By this, far off, she hears some huntsman hallow;</p>
        <p>A nurse’s song ne’er pleas’d her babe so well.</p>
        <p>The dire imagination she did follow</p>
        <p>This sound of hope doth labor to expel,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>For now reviving joy bids her rejoice,</p>
          <p>And flatters her it is Adonis’ voice.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Whereat her tears began to turn their tide,</p>
        <p>Being prison’d in her eye, like pearls in glass,</p>
        <p>Yet sometimes falls an orient drop beside,</p>
        <p>Which her cheek melts, as scorning it should pass</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>To wash the foul face of the sluttish ground,</p>
          <p>Who is but drunken when she seemeth drown’d.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>O hard-believing love, how strange it seems!</p>
        <p>Not to believe, and yet too credulous:</p>
        <p>Thy weal and woe are both of them extremes;</p>
        <p>Despair and hope makes thee ridiculous:</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>The one doth flatter thee in thoughts unlikely,</p>
          <p>In likely thoughts the other kills thee quickly.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Now she unweaves the web that she hath wrought,</p>
        <p>Adonis lives, and Death is not to blame;</p>
        <p>It was not she that call’d him all to naught;</p>
        <p>Now she adds honors to his hateful name:</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>She clepes him king of graves, and grave for kings,</p>
          <p>Imperious supreme of all mortal things.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>“No, no,” quoth she, “sweet Death, I did but jest,</p>
        <p>Yet pardon me, I felt a kind of fear</p>
        <p>When as I met the boar, that bloody beast,</p>
        <p>Which knows no pity, but is still severe;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Then, gentle shadow (truth I must confess),</p>
          <p>I rail’d on thee, fearing my love’s decesse.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>’Tis not my fault, the boar provok’d my tongue,</p>
        <p>Be wreak’d on him, invisible commander;</p>
        <p>’Tis he, foul creature, that hath done thee wrong,</p>
        <p>I did but act, he’s author of thy slander.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Grief hath two tongues, and never woman yet</p>
          <p>Could rule them both without ten women’s wit.”</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Thus hoping that Adonis is alive,</p>
        <p>Her rash suspect she doth extenuate,</p>
        <p>And that his beauty may the better thrive,</p>
        <p>With Death she humbly doth insinuate;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Tells him of trophies, statues, tombs, and stories</p>
          <p>His victories, his triumphs, and his glories.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>“O Jove,” quoth she, “how much a fool was I,</p>
        <p>To be of such a weak and silly mind,</p>
        <p>To wail his death who lives, and must not die</p>
        <p>Till mutual overthrow of mortal kind!</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,</p>
          <p>And beauty dead, black chaos comes again.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Fie, fie, fond love, thou art as full of fear</p>
        <p>As one with treasure laden, hemm’d with thieves;</p>
        <p>Trifles, unwitnessed with eye or ear,</p>
        <p>Thy coward heart with false bethinking grieves.”</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Even at this word she hears a merry horn,</p>
          <p>Whereat she leaps, that was but late forlorn.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>As falcons to the lure, away she flies,</p>
        <p>The grass stoops not, she treads on it so light,</p>
        <p>And in her haste unfortunately spies</p>
        <p>The foul boar’s conquest on her fair delight,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Which seen, her eyes as murd’red with the view,</p>
          <p>Like stars asham’d of day, themselves withdrew;</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Or as the snail, whose tender horns being hit,</p>
        <p>Shrinks backward in his shelly cave with pain,</p>
        <p>And there, all smoth’red up, in shade doth sit,</p>
        <p>Long after fearing to creep forth again;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>So at his bloody view her eyes are fled</p>
          <p>Into the deep-dark cabins of her head,</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Where they resign their office, and their light,</p>
        <p>To the disposing of her troubled brain,</p>
        <p>Who bids them still consort with ugly night,</p>
        <p>And never wound the heart with looks again,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Who like a king perplexed in his throne,</p>
          <p>By their suggestion, gives a deadly groan.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Whereat each tributary subject quakes,</p>
        <p>As when the wind imprison’d in the ground,</p>
        <p>Struggling for passage, earth’s foundation shakes,</p>
        <p>Which with cold terror doth men’s minds confound.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>This mutiny each part doth so surprise</p>
          <p>That from their dark beds once more leap her eyes,</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>And being open’d, threw unwilling light</p>
        <p>Upon the wide wound that the boar had trench’d</p>
        <p>In his soft flank, whose wonted lily white</p>
        <p>With purple tears, that his wound wept, was drench’d.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>No flow’r was nigh, no grass, herb, leaf, or weed,</p>
          <p>But stole his blood, and seem’d with him to bleed.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>This solemn sympathy poor Venus noteth,</p>
        <p>Over one shoulder doth she hang her head;</p>
        <p>Dumbly she passions, franticly she doteth,</p>
        <p>She thinks he could not die, he is not dead;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Her voice is stopp’d, her joints forget to bow,</p>
          <p>Her eyes are mad that they have wept till now.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Upon his hurt she looks so steadfastly,</p>
        <p>That her sight dazzling makes the wound seem three,</p>
        <p>And then she reprehends her mangling eye,</p>
        <p>That makes more gashes where no breach should be.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>His face seems twain, each several limb is doubled,</p>
          <p>For oft the eye mistakes, the brain being troubled.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>“My tongue cannot express my grief for one,</p>
        <p>And yet,” quoth she, “behold two Adons dead!</p>
        <p>My sighs are blown away, my salt tears gone,</p>
        <p>Mine eyes are turn’d to fire, my heart to lead:</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Heavy heart’s lead, melt at mine eyes’ red fire,</p>
          <p>So shall I die by drops of hot desire.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Alas, poor world, what treasure hast thou lost!</p>
        <p>What face remains alive that’s worth the viewing?</p>
        <p>Whose tongue is music now? What canst thou boast</p>
        <p>Of things long since, or any thing ensuing?</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>The flowers are sweet, their colors fresh and trim,</p>
          <p>But true sweet beauty liv’d and died with him.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Bonnet nor veil henceforth no creature wear!</p>
        <p>Nor sun nor wind will ever strive to kiss you:</p>
        <p>Having no fair to lose, you need not fear,</p>
        <p>The sun doth scorn you, and the wind doth hiss you.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>But when Adonis liv’d, sun and sharp air</p>
          <p>Lurk’d like two thieves, to rob him of his fair.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>And therefore would he put his bonnet on,</p>
        <p>Under whose brim the gaudy sun would peep;</p>
        <p>The wind would blow it off, and being gone,</p>
        <p>Play with his locks; then would Adonis weep;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>And straight, in pity of his tender years,</p>
          <p>They both would strive who first should dry his tears.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>To see his face the lion walk’d along</p>
        <p>Behind some hedge, because he would not fear him;</p>
        <p>To recreate himself when he hath song,</p>
        <p>The tiger would be tame, and gently hear him;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>If he had spoke, the wolf would leave his prey,</p>
          <p>And never fright the silly lamb that day.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>When he beheld his shadow in the brook,</p>
        <p>The fishes spread on it their golden gills;</p>
        <p>When he was by, the birds such pleasure took,</p>
        <p>That some would sing, some other in their bills</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Would bring him mulberries and ripe-red cherries:</p>
          <p>He fed them with his sight, they him with berries.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>But this foul, grim, and urchin-snouted boar,</p>
        <p>Whose downward eye still looketh for a grave,</p>
        <p>Ne’er saw the beauteous livery that he wore—</p>
        <p>Witness the entertainment that he gave.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>If he did see his face, why then I know</p>
          <p>He thought to kiss him, and hath kill’d him so.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>’Tis true, ’tis true, thus was Adonis slain:</p>
        <p>He ran upon the boar with his sharp spear,</p>
        <p>Who did not whet his teeth at him again,</p>
        <p>But by a kiss thought to persuade him there;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>And nousling in his flank, the loving swine</p>
          <p>Sheath’d unaware the tusk in his soft groin.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Had I been tooth’d like him, I must confess,</p>
        <p>With kissing him I should have kill’d him first,</p>
        <p>But he is dead, and never did he bless</p>
        <p>My youth with his, the more am I accurs’d.”</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>With this she falleth in the place she stood,</p>
          <p>And stains her face with his congealed blood.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>She looks upon his lips, and they are pale,</p>
        <p>She takes him by the hand, and that is cold,</p>
        <p>She whispers in his ears a heavy tale,</p>
        <p>As if they heard the woeful words she told;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>She lifts the coffer-lids that close his eyes,</p>
          <p>Where lo, two lamps burnt out in darkness lies;</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Two glasses, where herself herself beheld</p>
        <p>A thousand times, and now no more reflect,</p>
        <p>Their virtue lost, wherein they late excell’d,</p>
        <p>And every beauty robb’d of his effect.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>“Wonder of time,” quoth she, “this is my spite,</p>
          <p>That thou being dead, the day should yet be light.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Since thou art dead, lo here I prophesy,</p>
        <p>Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend;</p>
        <p>It shall be waited on with jealousy,</p>
        <p>Find sweet beginning, but unsavory end;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Ne’er settled equally, but high or low,</p>
          <p>That all love’s pleasure shall not match his woe.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>It shall be fickle, false, and full of fraud,</p>
        <p>Bud, and be blasted, in a breathing while,</p>
        <p>The bottom poison, and the top o’erstraw’d</p>
        <p>With sweets that shall the truest sight beguile;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>The strongest body shall it make most weak,</p>
          <p>Strike the wise dumb, and teach the fool to speak.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>It shall be sparing, and too full of riot,</p>
        <p>Teaching decrepit age to tread the measures;</p>
        <p>The staring ruffian shall it keep in quiet,</p>
        <p>Pluck down the rich, enrich the poor with treasures;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>It shall be raging mad, and silly mild,</p>
          <p>Make the young old, the old become a child.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>It shall suspect where is no cause of fear,</p>
        <p>It shall not fear where it should most mistrust,</p>
        <p>It shall be merciful, and too severe,</p>
        <p>And most deceiving when it seems most just;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Perverse it shall be, where it shows most toward,</p>
          <p>Put fear to valor, courage to the coward.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>It shall be cause of war and dire events,</p>
        <p>And set dissension ’twixt the son and sire,</p>
        <p>Subject and servile to all discontents,</p>
        <p>As dry combustious matter is to fire.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Sith in his prime, Death doth my love destroy,</p>
          <p>They that love best, their loves shall not enjoy.”</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>By this the boy that by her side lay kill’d</p>
        <p>Was melted like a vapor from her sight,</p>
        <p>And in his blood that on the ground lay spill’d,</p>
        <p>A purple flow’r sprung up, check’red with white,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Resembling well his pale cheeks and the blood</p>
          <p>Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>She bows her head, the new-sprung flow’r to smell,</p>
        <p>Comparing it to her Adonis’ breath,</p>
        <p>And says within her bosom it shall dwell,</p>
        <p>Since he himself is reft from her by death.</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>She crops the stalk, and in the breach appears</p>
          <p>Green-dropping sap, which she compares to tears.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>“Poor flow’r,” quoth she, “this was thy father’s guise—</p>
        <p>Sweet issue of a more sweet-smelling sire—</p>
        <p>For every little grief to wet his eyes;</p>
        <p>To grow unto himself was his desire,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>And so ’tis thine, but know it is as good</p>
          <p>To wither in my breast as in his blood.</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Here was thy father’s bed, here in my breast;</p>
        <p>Thou art the next of blood, and ’tis thy right.</p>
        <p>Lo in this hollow cradle take thy rest,</p>
        <p>My throbbing heart shall rock thee day and night;</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>There shall not be one minute in an hour</p>
          <p>Wherein I will not kiss my sweet love’s flow’r.”</p>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section class="stanza">
        <p>Thus weary of the world, away she hies,</p>
        <p>And yokes her silver doves, by whose swift aid</p>
        <p>Their mistress mounted through the empty skies,</p>
        <p>In her light chariot, quickly is convey’d,</p>
      <section class="couplet">
          <p>Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen</p>
          <p>Means to immure herself, and not be seen.</p>
      </section>
    </section>
  